{"id":195110,"date":"2024-06-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=195110"},"modified":"2024-06-07T01:00:48","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T01:00:48","slug":"nevada-national-guard-holds-workshop-for-new-partner-samoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=195110","title":{"rendered":"Nevada National Guard Holds Workshop for New Partner Samoa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Michael Fusi Ligaliga, assistant professor and program lead of Pacific Island Studies at Brigham Young University in Hawaii, speaks during a two-day workshop at the Nevada National Guard’s Office of the Adjutant General in Carson City, Nevada. Ligaliga’s presentation was part of a workshop to educate members of the Nevada National Guard about the culture of Samoa, their newest partner in the State Partnership Program.
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CARSON CITY, Nev. – Michael Fusi Ligaliga understands familial village systems and how they work in the Independent State of Samoa.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s an assistant professor and program lead of Pacific Island Studies at Brigham Young University in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also a Matai, or Chief, at his village in Samoa.<\/p>\n

Ligaliga spoke this week during a Nevada National Guard State Partnership Program workshop at the Office of the Adjutant General in Carson City.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I am extremely proud of is our traditions of our forefathers,\u201d Ligaliga said of Samoa, the first Pacific Island nation to gain independence on June 1, 1962. \u201cMost of them were farmers. Sovereignty was important. We wanted our own identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event brought Nevada Guardsmen together with representatives from the National Guard Bureau, Defense Security Cooperation University, the Institute of Security Governance and the Nevada Governor\u2019s Office. The workshop focused on the Nevada National Guard\u2019s newest partner nation through the Department of Defense National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program: Samoa.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Samoa joined the Kingdom of Tonga and the Republic of Fiji as Nevada\u2019s third state partner in the program, which matches a sovereign nation with a state National Guard for mutually beneficial exchanges and partnerships.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very impressed by the quality of discussion and the presenters (for the two-day workshop),\u201d said Maj. Kristina Roberts, NGB J-5, Indo-Pacific Command desk officer who attended the event. \u201cThis is a great first step helping establish the Samoa-Nevada partnership on the right foot. Understanding the culture is pivotal for any State Partnership Program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iati Iati, associate professor, School of History, Political Science and International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington, also spoke on the importance of understanding geopolitical competition and regional conflicts throughout Oceania.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it went spectacularly well,\u201d said Maj. Dustin Petersen, Nevada National Guard SPP director. \u201cFrom a professional standpoint, we had a good workout, to use a gym term. This week\u2019s event helped professionalize our SPP force quite a bit by bringing in experts on the culture from Samoa. Working with ISG and DSCU was also very important to our success with this week\u2019s workshop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samoa (known as \u201cWestern Samoa\u201d until 1997) is an archipelago consisting of two main islands, Upolu and Savai\u2019i, and seven smaller islands. It has about 200,000 people, with roughly 75 percent of them residing in the capital city of Apia.<\/p>\n

Samoa was a German protectorate before World War I and was occupied unopposed by New Zealand in 1914. In 1962, Samoa became the first Polynesian nation to establish independence in the 20th century. Its official languages are Samoan and English.<\/p>\n

Each partnership works through mutually beneficial exchanges between nations and state National Guards. Given that Samoa does not have a state military force, future engagements in Samoa will focus on a whole-of-government approach incorporating outside military state agencies. One exchange scheduled for this year is set to focus on medical readiness, Petersen said.<\/p>\n

The SPP began in 1993 with 13 partners following the end of the Cold War. Thirty-one years later, it includes 92 partnerships with 106 nations and is a key U.S. security cooperation tool that facilitates collaboration across all aspects of civil-military affairs.<\/p>\n

For more National Guard news<\/a><\/p>\n

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National Guard X<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Fusi Ligaliga, assistant professor and program lead of Pacific Island Studies at Brigham Young University in Hawaii, speaks during a two-day workshop at the Nevada National Guard’s Office of the Adjutant General in Carson City, Nevada. Ligaliga’s presentation was part of a workshop to educate members of the Nevada National Guard about the culture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195112,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=195110"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195113,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195110\/revisions\/195113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/195112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=195110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=195110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=195110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}